Publication Date

2020

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Balcerzak, Scott

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of English

Abstract

This thesis provides an analysis of Jordan Peele’s films, Get Out (2017) and Us (2019). The thesis contextualizes Get Out and Us as part of a protracted cultural conversation regarding monstrous images of the cinematic black body that began with Hollywood’s early monster films and continued into the culturally subversive era of blaxploitation horror films. While blaxploitation cinema reclaimed images of the racial Other that had been represented in the early creature feature subgenre, no such notable movement has subverted the more recent body horror subgenre. Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us shift this subgenre toward racially inverted body horror. Rather than being films focused on having white bodies and identities becoming Othered through violent transformation and mutilation, Get Out and Us primarily portray black bodies, already Othered forms, being overtaken and utilized by privileged whiteness.

Extent

53 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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